Pschology Module 27: Thinking, Language and Intelligence The Availability Heuristic Essay

Availability Heuristic A mental shortcut that relies on warm examples that comes to mind. When you are trying to make a decision, a number of related events or situations mogul immediately spring to the forefront of your thoughts. As a result, you might judge that those events are more frequent and possible than others. You give greater trust to this instruction and tend to overestimate the probability and resemblinglihood of similar things incident in the future. ExamplesAfter seeing news reports about people losing their jobs, you might start to believe that you are in danger of being laid-off. You start guile awake in bed each night worrying that you are about to be fired. After seeing several television programs on chisel attacks, you start to think that such incidences are relatively common. When you go on vacation, you refuse to swim in the ocean because you believe the probability of a cheat attack is high. After reading an article about lottery winners, you start to o verestimate your own likelihood of winning the jackpot. You start spending more notes than you should each week on lottery tickets.Availability heuristic influences our decisionns and judgments by remembering something that shapes our impression to make these decisions and lead us astray in our judgments that makes information pop into our minds. Availability heuristic leads us to fear the wrong things and we shouldnt always fear everything.Four influences that feed fear and cause us to abbreviate higher risks 1. We fear what our ancestral history has prepared us to fear (Confinement and heights, and therefore flying)2. We fear what we cannot control (We can control a car by driving but not a plane) 3. We fear what is immediate (Teens are indifferent to smokings toxicity because they live more for the present than the hostile future) 4. We fear what is most readily available in memory (Availability Heuristic) (Scary, vivid images like 9/11 cause our judgments of risk, we remember andfear natural disasters like hurricanes tornados and earthquakes that kill people instantly)